


Drain the Cup Dry

by canis_m



Series: Close Enough for Government Work [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Anal Play, Beta/Omega, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, Light Dom/sub, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Top Liv, Vaginal Sex, canon-typical mention of past attempted rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-10 08:14:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15287463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: When Rafael goes into heat unexpectedly, Olivia takes it in stride.  More or less.





	1. Chapter 1

As she and Fin left ADA Ferrera's office, Olivia checked the time on her phone. Early for lunch, but if nothing else she and Rafael could get coffee. His current workload—reviewing old cases, chiefly—left his schedule more open to amendment than hers. She hadn't told him she'd be in the neighborhood; it could be a surprise.

Her feet were already turning down the hall. She glanced at Fin. "Go ahead without me, give Rollins and Carisi the update. I'll catch up."

Fin made a show of glancing at his wristwatch. His expression was bland. "Little early in the day for a booty call."

This was what she got for going public with her private life. There was no one else in the hallway, thank God. In some less professional universe Olivia might've fired back _what, you've never heard of morning delight?_

Instead she turned on her heels. "You know, I'm still working on those performance evals."

"Hey, take your time, Lieutenant. I got this. Tell the lil mister I said hi."

She was beginning to think the squad took perverse pleasure in coming up with new monikers for Rafael that would drive him bonkers if he heard. Shaking her head, she waved acknowledgement and continued down the hall.

Even with his reassignment to Conviction Integrity, Rafael hadn't been asked to change offices. It would look bad, he said—any move that smacked of demotion in response to the one and only omega ADA in Manhattan finding a partner and forming a bond. Bad optics. Olivia peered through the office windows, but there was no sign of him inside. She went to Carmen's workstation.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," said Carmen, after finishing on the phone. "He went home sick."

Olivia drew up short. "Sick? When?" 

"Maybe an hour ago?"

"What—was he okay? Did he say what was wrong?"

Carmen shook her head. "Just asked that I reschedule his afternoon appointment." Glancing sideways, she lowered her voice. "Between you and me? He was looking a little pink."

"Pink. Oh...kay. Thanks, Carmen."

Olivia turned back down the hall, already dialing Rafael's mobile. The call went to voice mail. No answer at his home number, either. Beginning to worry in earnest, she sent a text. 

_Stopped by your office. Carmen said you went home sick. Call me when you get this?_

She'd reached the building's front lobby when her phone buzzed. "You can call off the dogs," said Rafael, without preamble. "I haven't fallen down the well."

"That's a relief. What's going on? Not feeling good?"

The pause that followed grew strangely long. "Would you believe me if I said I had a headache?"

"Not when you say it like that. You didn't miss your pills again, did you?" 

She'd meant it as a joke, mostly. The silence this time was thunderous. 

"Rafa?"

"I didn't miss any pills, not that it seems to matter." He was clipping his words, the way he did when irate or distressed. It made her want to crawl through the phone to him. To get to his side, so they could take on the enemy together. "False heat. The plague of the newly bonded. Google and be amazed." 

"I don't have to," Olivia said, swallowing her surprise. "There was a case."

"Of course there was."

The shape of the day rearranged itself in her mind like fragments in a kaleidoscope. The need to get to him only sharpened. Fin had taken the car back to the precinct; she'd have to hail a cab. She pulled on her hat and gloves. "You're at home? I'm on my way."

"Liv, it's okay. You don't need to come over."

"The hell I don't."

"After work, then—you don't need to come _now—_ "

"I'll be there in twenty," she said.

*

In the entrance of his apartment she pocketed her key, then pulled off hat and gloves and coat to stow them in the front closet. She found Rafael sitting on the living room couch, flushed and listless in t-shirt and sweatpants. He looked at her morosely, but stood as she crossed the room and opened her arms. 

After a hesitation, he shuffled into them. His arms looped around her waist; he ducked his face to the side of her neck. His nose and breath felt hot on her skin after the outside air's stinging cold, but the apartment was cool; he must've turned down the thermostat. Drawing back a little, Olivia touched his hair. Still styled with the usual fastidiousness on top, but its roots were darkened, damp with sweat. 

"This is some deja vu," she murmured. Rafael made a disparaging noise. "Hormones gone wild, huh?"

"My doctor was impressed. Said he'd never seen false heat in an omega partnered with a beta before. Seems I'm a statistical outlier in more ways than one."

"You mean you're exceptional? We knew that." She squeezed his shoulders. "Why didn't you call me?"

He was shaking his head. "You're busy, you're working, we haven't talked about this, there was no plan—"

"So we wing it. Of course I want to be here for you. How could you think I wouldn't?" 

When the furrow in his brow refused to budge, she stilled her hands. For the first time it dawned on her, too belatedly, that after the circumstances of his last heat, after twenty years of resolute avoidance, he might want nothing to do with heat sex at all, regardless of partner. That maybe he'd told her not to come out of more than senseless reticence, or deference to her job. 

"Do you want me to be here?" she asked.

"Of course I do! I didn't want to put you in this position!" He pulled away. 

"Position?"

"If omegas can't give meaningful consent during heat, then _I can't give it to you now."_

It stopped Olivia cold. Not least because his ability to consent at present had been the furthest thing from her mind. A feeling like vertigo assailed her. This was why he'd told her not to come. Because he didn't want to put her in the shoes of a rapist. 

"This is different," she managed, even as she questioned the gut instinct that claimed it was. "Our relationship is different. I'm your partner—"

"And _that_ means implied consent."

"No, but there's something to be said for context. I seem to recall us having sex when we were both too intoxicated to operate a motor vehicle. Unless my memory's faulty, neither of us lost any sleep over whether we were too drunk to consent then." Too drunk to fuck, maybe, but that was another matter. 

Rafael had the grace to flush an even rosier shade of pink. "Your memory's fine."

"And I like to think we know each other pretty well." Understatement of the decade. She felt her footing grow surer as she went on. "So I'm willing to go out on a limb here and assume, if some ouija board had warned you last weekend that you'd be in heat today, we would've talked, and we would've agreed I'd be here to take care of you. In all capacities." Olivia sat down on the couch and looked up at him, spreading her hands. "Am I off base?"

Rafael sat down beside her. "We would've talked, and I would've drawn up a legally valid pre-heat agreement giving unambiguous permission for you to have your way with me."

"My way?"

His mouth twitched. "Our way."

"You can draw up an agreement for next time. If you really think it's better that I let you handle this one on your own..."

"Please don't," said Rafael. "I may not be at peak acuity just now, but. Stay? If you can?"

She slung her arm around his shoulders. "You got it."

Most of the tension went out of him. His eyes still searched her face. "You're not upset?"

Just what it was he thought she might be upset about eluded her. Rather than try to puzzle it out, she shook her head and set herself to putting the immediate future in order. "I'll take a day of personal time. Unless there's some dire emergency, the squad will be fine. I keep getting told I need to delegate more. Here's an opportunity to do it. We'll get delivery—"

"I'm not hungry."

"Well, I will be. If I'm supposed to keep up with you, I need to feed the machine. We'll get delivery now so we don't have to answer the door later. Then I'm gonna put on something comfy, and then—" She brought his hand to her lips to kiss his knuckles. Even his fingers were flushed; she couldn't wait to see the rest of him. "You and I are gonna have a nice time. Okay? Objections?"

He was smiling, finally, properly now. "Nothing at this time." 

Olivia kissed his hand again. "What's the name of that deli you like?"

*

She ordered soup and sandwiches, a pan of take-and-bake lasagna to throw in the oven later. A little carb loading wouldn't hurt; they'd burn it off. She raided Rafael's bedroom and the dresser drawer where she kept a few things: night clothes, underwear, a spare work top and pants. The t-shirt and grey pajama bottoms she settled on weren't the sexiest ensemble, but she figured Rafael needed no help in the arousal department today. 

She found him in the kitchen, draining a glass of water as if parched. He'd draped a damp hand towel around his neck. She tugged the towel aside to plant a kiss on his nape, then smoothed it into place again. "How're you doing?"

"Tolerably. For the moment."

"Can we talk a little more?"

"Before I'm too far gone to make sense?" His mouth twisted, but he followed her to the couch and sat. 

"Do you get that far gone?" she asked. Some omegas became practically nonverbal—she'd witnessed it a time or two—but it was hard to imagine Rafael succumbing to that. Last time he'd seemed fully coherent, if a little prone to childish diction. No surprise when the id was riding high.

"Rarely. I wouldn't expect it. My doctor said the pills should still be doing something to stem the tide."

Olivia chose her words carefully. "I'm just wondering if...you might find yourself wanting to do some things we haven't. Yet."

His eyes narrowed. "Because I'm omega, you assume—"

"I'm not assuming. I'm asking." 

"About penetration?"

He enunciated the _p_ with great exactitude. When it came to this subject, Olivia hadn't been sure whether he'd perform evasive maneuvers, or cut to the chase. "I don't have an expectation either way," she said. "Just—be aware you're dealing with a rookie here. On the giving side."

His side-eye was unsurprised. "I suppose your alpha friends weren't into taking it."

"If they were, they never brought it up with me," Olivia said. "You know how fragile their masculinity can be." That got a laugh out of him, if only a shallow puff. She softened her voice. "Is this hard to talk about?"

His glance strayed across the room toward the dry bar, stocked with tumblers and top-shelf single-malt scotch. "Without a drink or six, yes."

Olivia couldn't blame him, but booze during heat was a recipe for apocalyptic hangover, and they both knew it. "Would it help if I go first?" She drew her feet up on the couch and tucked them against his leg. "I don't like receiving anal. I've tried it, more than once, and it didn't float my boat. And that was before—"

"You don't have to say it."

She looked at him steadily. "Before a man who is now dead threatened to rape me from behind. So if you were secretly hoping—"

"I wasn't. Not—" He floundered, but righted himself quickly. "I mean, if you'd wanted to, of course. Never if you didn't."

"That's where I'm at, too," Olivia said. She glanced wryly at her work bag, empty of dildos. "I didn't exactly bring any equipment."

"I have some things. For, for solo use."

During his last heat she'd assumed he must have means of relief, even as she'd been careful—determined, really—not to contemplate them in any detail. But it sounded as if it cost him to admit it. She curled her toes against his thigh. "Rafa's toybox?"

The playfulness seemed to reach him. He peeked at her sideways. "You wanna see?"

"Later, I do. Is there anything else I should know? Just basics?"

"Heat stuff?" He shrugged a little. "My refractory period's shortened. Drastically at times. I may be noisier."

"You, noisy?"

He shot her a look, but there was fondness in it. "And if you're picturing some kind of nonstop marathon, don't. Not at my age. I get tapped out, I take naps."

"Is that supposed to cool my jets? I love naps." She scooted across the couch to lean against his shoulder. "I like your noise. I love you."

That did him in, as she'd known it would. The last of his prickliness vanished, and his expression opened like an illuminated book. He turned his body toward her, bumping his forehead against hers. He spoke in a helpless whisper. "I love you, too. So much, Liv. I haven't said it enough—"

"You show me." She knew how hard it was to lay bare what you'd tried your best to bury. For good or for ill. "You always have." 

"That's no excuse for not saying it. I'm supposed to have a way with words."

Glancing at his lap and its growing body of evidence, Olivia pressed her lips together. "I think the People's exhibit D is saying it right now."

He made a face that untwisted to a foolish smile. "What with you being so nice and all."

At that moment her phone buzzed: the delivery driver with their provisions. Rafael drew reluctantly away. "I'm not fit to be sniffed," he said.

"I've got it." She gave the bulge in his sweatpants a promising grope before going to fetch her wallet. "You can get ready to prep me for the 'stand.'"

With a groan he got up from the couch, and rolled his eyes all the way to the bedroom.

*

By the time she joined him, he'd stripped to his waist and was sitting splay-legged on the bed, atop the heat sheet, a soft terrycloth blanket—or blanket-sized towel—that covered the duvet. For once in his life Rafael had chosen plain white, as if for an omega's bridal bed. Olivia paused to admire him: the spread of his shoulders, the trail of greying hair down his belly, the heat-flush dappling his chest and neck. When he saw her getting an eyeful, he chucked his phone to the bedside table, waggled his eyebrows, and gave a come-hither dip of his chin. 

With a soundless laugh she prowled up toward him from the foot of the bed. The first order of business was to kiss him thoroughly. He made a low, glad sound and put his hands to her waist, sidling them under her shirt. When her fingers touched the waistband of his sweatpants, he drew his mouth from hers. 

"Could you—" He hesitated. "This may sound odd."

"Try me."

"Would you sit behind me? Use your hand?"

Olivia translated this without difficulty as _please hold me in your strong arms, mi alfa,_ or the nearest he could get to it while preserving some scrap of manly pride. She raised an eyebrow. 

"Wow. I've heard some twisted stuff in my time, but that?" 

He protested, indignant, and tried to squirm away. She caught and held him, then clambered around him to the head of the bed. She pulled off her shirt and unhooked her bra to toss both aside. Seating herself against the pillows, she wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his chest. She put her chin on his shoulder. 

"Like this?"

With a sigh he leaned into her, as if her body were a recliner and his weary bones longed for rest. His back settled against her bare breasts with a delectable shimmy. "Just like that."

She smoothed her hands down his arms, caressing from biceps to wrists. She put her nose to his neck and took slow, deep breaths, the way he did when he scented her, trying to drag every invigorating pheromone to the base of her brain. But to her he smelled the way he always did. The scent roused assurance, comfort, calm like a ballast in the pit of her chest. Pleasure, too, and the beginnings of lazy arousal—lazier than his, for now, if no less pleased with his nearness. She whuffed audibly. His shoulders twitched in a silent laugh.

"How do I smell?"

"Like a man in need of attention." When she spider-walked her fingers down his belly, along the primrose path of greying hair, he tipped his head back to her shoulder, exposing his throat. She spoke into his ear. "Lift up?"

He hiked his hips to drag his sweatpants down, leaving them bunched around his knees. His cock, ready and flushed darker than the rest of him, bobbed eagerly with newfound liberty. Olivia slid her fingers into the thatch of hair at its base. 

"If you want me to use something fancier than spit..." 

"Um." His chin swung toward the bedside table. "Top drawer."

With a lean and a stretch she could just reach it. Finding the bottle, she pumped it once into her hand, then snaked her arms back around him.

Whoever had filed the false report that omega men were on the smallish side, they'd never gotten a load of Rafael Barba with his pants down. He made the most satisfying handful she'd ever held. When she curled her slicked fingers around him, too lightly, his hips flinched. His head lolled hard against her shoulder. 

"Liiiiv—"

"Someone's extra sensitive," she observed. She let her touch ghost down and up his shaft, then traced around the head with tortuous delicacy. Rafael garbled an objection.

"Don't _tease."_

"No?"

If the aim of all this was to take the edge off, she supposed it might be premature to make him writhe on it. Firming her hold, she started to jack him with conviction. Within a few strokes he was groaning, flashing his teeth, digging his heels into the rucked-up sheet. He clutched the outsides of her thighs where they wrapped around him, grasping almost hard enough to bruise. His hips bucked into her grip.

She didn't try to hold him still. She breathed on his ear. "Better?"

"'S good, I needed this, it's so good when you do it, Liv your _hands—_ "

Trust him to do the talking, dirty or otherwise, while she did the work. But she couldn't claim not to like it. Division of labor: they had it down pat. She kept her pace firm and steady, tugging down as he jerked into her fist. With her other hand she thumbed his nipple, traced little whorls around it and pinched. She spoke in a murmur.

"Didn't I say I'd take care of you?" 

"You did. You did." As she kept stroking, his babble unraveled—then there was only her name, Liv, _Liv,_ between open-mouthed gasps of _ah—_

He came with a full-body shudder, spilling over her hand and his belly and chest. She skimmed her fingers through the mess, letting go of his cock to use both hands. Rafael slumped with his head on her shoulder, panting. He knew how to put on a show—all the better when it was unstaged, a rampant display of raw feeling—and it had worked on his one-woman audience. The ache for him throbbed in earnest between her legs.

Maybe he could smell it. He let her use the handcloth from the nightstand to wipe them clean, but when that was done, he kicked off his sweatpants and rolled in her arms to face her. His eyes unfocused inches from her chest.

"Can I—"

He liked to ask permission, even when they both knew he had it. In those cases she suspected he asked mainly to hear her give the command. 

"Go to it, sweetheart," she said.

He sprawled onto her gracelessly, burying his face between her breasts. Normally he was a little smoother about his segues—smooth enough not to face-plant with no prelude—but in his current state it struck Olivia as purely endearing. She cradled his head, winding her fingers into his hair. He nosed and nuzzled, nipped softly, took a nipple into his mouth and sweetly sucked. Where his lips couldn't attend, he palmed with perfect firmness, or circled her aureole with fingers and thumb. 

For a man unabashedly enchanted with her tits, he did a first-rate job of hiding it outside the bedroom. She'd never once caught him gawping. Still, once he got his nose between them, it often seemed he might wallow there indefinitely. She sank back into the pillows, feeling spoiled, and let him do as he would. 

The ache between her legs continued to tighten. Her hips started to move of their own accord, rocking against his chest. Without lifting his mouth, Rafael made an approving sound, and, as if her motion were contagious, swiveled his own hips with unmistakable purpose against the bed.

On a usual night he'd need an hour or two before a second round. If there was a second round. Longer if they'd been drinking. Olivia let out a breathless laugh. "You weren't kidding about shorter intermissions."

His groan was muffled. "It's a curse."

"Not a bad curse to have, if you ask me."

"You say that now." 

When he began to kiss his way southward, she stopped him. "Get up here."

He blinked at her like a man startled from sleep, as if the waking world didn't quite make sense yet. "Don't want me to go down on you?"

"Right now I want you in me." Taking his hand, she pressed his fingers past the waistband of her pants. "Don't make me wait."

With a stuttered breath he hauled himself up and onto her. He helped her claw her pants down; she guided him in. Between her wetness and the lube that still clung to his cock, there was no resistance. She sighed and drew him in as he slid home.

He knew by now how she liked it when she was under him: less thrusting than grinding, their bodies pressed close and tight, his hips angled to put weight on her clit. He started at an easy pace. Too easy, if pleasant for a while. She squeezed around him, digging her nails into the meat of his ass.

"Come on," she whispered. "I know you can go harder than that."

Rafael made a choking sound, but the heat of challenge flared in his eyes, if only for an instant. He planted his hands on either side of her shoulders, and let her have it.

If he'd taught her anything about omega men, it was that they liked to do the fucking as much as any other kind, and had no less aptitude when given a chance. Sweat dripped from his neck and temples, from his chin, down his rippling back. Every snap of his hips pushed him slick and hot and hard inside her. She gripped him with her entire body, tightening. It was glorious and maddening, and it wasn't enough. The strain in her built and built with no sign of outlet.

She'd meant to let him have this round—let him fuck out his initial burst of need, however he needed to—but he wouldn't be sated unless she was. She'd never faked it with him, and didn't intend to start. Touching the nape of his neck, just for a second, she said, "Hold on." 

Even in the grip of his heat, he froze instantly. Crude gratification seared her, and the urge to praise him— _my good boy_ —caught in her teeth. Instead she rolled on top of him, keeping him in her. She crouched over him, hair falling wildly around her face, and ground down. 

Rafael's jaw dropped, but no sound escaped. His hands flew to her hips and clung. She rocked on him, hard, hard and fast and there, there it was, that was it—that perfect deep unfurling. A groan rose from the depths of her chest. He stared up at her, mouth open, eyes gone wide and dark.

She rode him through the ebb of it, through the helpless little sounds that broke from his throat. Then he was shaking, stilling, spilling himself again inside her, and Olivia went still over him to watch his face.

After all that, he was slow to soften. Breathing heavily, she eased them both down onto their sides. Their heads landed on the same pillow. The flush on his cheeks seemed to wane, at least in part. He blinked at her dazedly and licked his lips.

"Jesus, Liv." 

"No kidding." She felt a little dazed herself. A sense of foolish accomplishment buoyed her. "Think that'll hold you for a minute?" 

"For a few."

When at last he slipped out of her, Rafael made a small sound of momentary loss. Olivia knew the feeling. She laced her fingers into his hair—the styling was in shambles—and kissed his brow. His eyelids drooped.

"Nap time?" she whispered. 

Burrowing into the pillow, he nodded. She went on stroking his hair, watching his eyes fall shut. She waited until his breathing slowed and evened before slipping out the far side of the bed.

Of all the men she'd dated, Rafael kept his bathroom the neatest, though Ed's had come a close second in its minimalism. Most of the products and potions—more than she used herself—were housed primly in drawers, while the arsenal of colognes took pride of place on the counter. There wasn't quite a bottle for each color of suspenders in his wardrobe, but it was a near thing. He'd worn none of them today; heat could render even pleasurable scents intolerable.

She searched the drawers until she found his nail clippers. Sitting on the toilet seat, she pulled the wastebasket nearer and set about trimming her fingernails short. Not that they'd been daggers to begin with, but for sensitive places even sensible was too long. It felt a little strange, disconcerting, to do this sort of mindful preparation, when she was used to nothing more elaborate than unwrapping a condom. Not even that, with Rafael, since they'd both tested clean.

She swept the trimmings into the wastebasket, careful to leave no debris, and returned the clippers to their drawer. Putting on clothes again seemed like too much bother. Instead Olivia wrapped herself in his bathrobe, a striped affair in brown and beige. She belted it and padded out of the room.

Since Rafael showed no sign of stirring, she draped a light blanket over him and went to the kitchen. When her hand made a beeline for her phone, waiting where she'd left it on the kitchen island, she felt a slither of shame, as if she were cheating on him with the job. But he was out like a light, and what was the protocol, anyway—was she supposed to stay glued to him, on call to dispense cuddles at any second? 

She told herself she'd check her messages, that was all. Approval from Dodds on the personal time, a chorus of 10-4s from the squad. From Rollins, a single addition: _holler if you need anything._ After a hesitation, Olivia perched on a bar stool and dialed.

"Hey," she said, when Rollins picked up. "Thanks for checking in."

"Sure, are you okay? Is Barba? Fin told us you were headed his way when you went AWOL."

"Yeah, there was...a situation. You've heard of false heat?" It took her a minute to recognize the noise on the other end of the line as smothered sniggering. "Amanda, please."

"I'm sorry, it's just—Fin kept saying 'booty call' and I told him he was out of his mind—"

"It wasn't planned, believe me."

"No, I get it. I do. Seriously, Liv, any alpha on the force would. Even Dodds."

 _"Please_ don't tell Dodds. Or anyone else." 

"Cross my heart. Look, we're fine, everything's covered here, so just—take care of hot stuff."

"Thanks," Olivia said dryly, and ended the call. Of all the epithets the squad had lately tried to saddle him with, _hot stuff_ might be the first one Rafael wouldn't reject. She poured a glass of water and headed for the bedroom, to settle in beside him until he woke.


	2. Chapter 2

Rafael slept for the better part of an hour. The first sign of his waking was a hand on Olivia's thigh. It stole upward, creeping along the bathrobe's vertical stripes. She looked down to find him watching her with one eye cracked.

His voice was gravelly, but there was mischief in it. "Looks better on you. You should keep it."

The robe, he meant. "How about I borrow it for the day," Olivia said. "It'll smell like me when you get it back." She set aside the volume of essays she'd stolen from his bookshelf and smoothed his hair. "It's lunchtime. Think you could eat?"

He flopped across her lap and let his chin rest on her thigh, pointing directly at her crotch. "I think I could eat _some_ thing." 

Tempting as that was, he needed to put food in his stomach. Lack of appetite still seemed uncanny on him, common symptom or no. "If you're good and eat your actual lunch, maybe you'll get dessert," she said. He was scenting her shamelessly. She struggled to keep a straight face. "You know, I dig the lowered inhibition, but I think I like you better when you aren't quite so fixated."

On an ordinary day he would've taken it in stride—sassed back, maybe, and the moment would've passed without impression. As it was, his quiet lasted a heartbeat too long. Then he said, with every evidence of lightness, "You're not the only one."

He shifted off her lap and drew himself upright. Without meeting he eyes he reached for his sweatpants at the foot of the bed. 

Her stomach sank as she watched him pull the sweatpants on. "That wasn't a very alpha thing to say, was it." 

An alpha wouldn't have said it at all. Some held that their response to heat pheromones ought to be considered its own condition, called rut. Olivia had never bought that piece of rape apologism— _couldn't help it, he was in rut_ —when in her experience, any motivated alpha could damn well control himself if he chose. Too many were socialized to pretend otherwise.

Still, she wished she could know what it was like, for once. To be wholly bewitched by a lover's scent. For all she shared with Rafael, she couldn't share that.

"Strictly speaking, you're not one," said Rafael. "I don't expect you to be something you're not."

Unlike her. His partner who'd just said outright she'd rather he didn't act like what he was. She remembered that he hadn't chosen to be in heat, either this time or the last; three convicted felons and his hormones had arranged it for him. And the hormones didn't only heighten arousal. If she didn't blame his cock for being extra sensitive, she could hardly blame him.

"If you need to get back to work, I'll be fine here," he added, with crushing courtesy. "You've helped a lot." 

Helped. As if she were doing him a favor—doing some kind of chore. Like helping a friend move apartments. _Shit._

"Rafa. Rafael." He was hunching on the edge of the bed. She crawled over to touch his back, then wind her arms around his middle. "I didn't mean I'm not having a good time. Or that you're doing anything wrong. You're not." She kissed the hunch of his shoulders, keeping her hands well away from his neck. She had no business trying to gentle him now. "I'm not going anywhere."

He raised his chin. "Don't say I didn't give you an out."

"I won't." She rubbed his belly and love handles, kissed his neck to taste the salt of his sweat. "How about a shower? You and me. Get cleaned up a little?"

He let himself be persuaded. Olivia gave him a minute in the bathroom, listening for the toilet's flush before she followed. She brought his fancy lube from the bedside table, just in case.

He ran the shower cooler than she liked it; she didn't complain. He bent his head and let her work shampoo into his hair, let her lather his back and scrub it. Before long he was hard again, beads of pre-come dripping in tandem with the water down his shaft. Olivia slicked her hands and stroked him. Then she rinsed him, backed him flat against the tiled wall, and finished him with her mouth.

As he stepped out of the shower, his knees nearly buckled. He had to sit for a minute on the toilet seat while the blood returned to his head.

"More water," prescribed Olivia. "And something to eat." She brought him a full glass and left him to whatever primping he deemed necessary. 

He turned up in the kitchen wearing a t-shirt, a pair of polka-dot boxer shorts that left little to the imagination, and nothing else. Olivia had started without him on her chicken noodle soup.

"I got two kinds of sandwiches," she offered, but Rafael turned up his nose at both.

"Yours looks edible." 

Flattening her lips, Olivia relinquished the spoon and pushed the bowl in front of him. She unwrapped a sandwich instead. Rafael polished off the rest of the soup unaided, and wiped his mouth when he was through.

"Clean plate club," he said.

Olivia patted him on the back. "You did good." She finished half of her sandwich and set the other half aside. "Think you'll be able to forgive me?"

"I forgave you in the shower. I know you don't give pity blowjobs. Or sense-of-obligation blowjobs, either."

"You're damn right I don't," she said. "You've just been awfully quiet."

"Whatever scintillating commentary I might be withholding, it's not G-rated."

"You want to wax eloquent about my lady bits? Fine by me."

"While you're eating? Really?"

"I'm not eating now." She swung sideways on the bar stool and caught his ankle between her bare feet. "How about we talk dessert?"

His eyes darkened in a way that made her toes curl. Between the soup and the water he'd chugged, he had to revisit the little boys' room before anything else. Olivia put away her leftovers and went to the living room couch, considering the silent flat-screen TV. Exactly when he found time to watch them was an unsolved mystery, but Rafael had quite the video library: Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Almodóvar, stacks of classic and foreign-language films she knew nothing about. She wondered if he'd be able to last through a movie later. A short one. They could always pause to make out as needed.

When Rafael came back from the bathroom, he stopped in his tracks halfway to the couch. He stood for so long, looking at her so obliquely that Olivia turned to blink at him. 

"What?"

His throat worked on a swallow. "Just...remembering. From last time."

"Your last heat? What about it?"

His mouth moved in one of the most complex and dubious frowns she'd ever seen. "Sure you want to hear this?"

"With a teaser like that?"

Rafael's hands curled and uncurled at his sides. He came to sit at the far end of the couch, out of arm's reach. He held himself like a schoolboy in the principal's office, one who wasn't sure how much he regretted breaking the rules.

His mother was a school principal, supplied her investigator's brain. Always with the helpful connections. Olivia wasn't touching that one, not now, not even if it ended up landing in her jurisdiction. She focused on the lift of his chest as he sucked in a breath. 

"After you left, I didn't stay in the bedroom. Out here your scent was everywhere. I didn't want to be away from it. I sat on the floor, there, so I could put my head on the cushion." 

He nodded sidelong, toward the place on the couch where she sat. Olivia stifled the urge to squirm, and kept listening. 

"I'd never let myself think of you when...." He shook his head. "I told myself this time I couldn't help it. Because I was in heat. It wasn't true. I could have. I didn't." He closed his eyes. "All I could smell was you. I put my face in the cushion and imagined it was your lap. My mouth on you. My tongue in you. You were holding my head down and I—" When he opened his eyes again, they were glazed. "You told me what to do. You told me it was good. And I jerked myself off and came so hard I blacked out."

By the time he stopped speaking, his voice had thinned to a harsh whisper. His flush spread with hot new fervor over his face and throat. Olivia wondered, not altogether idly, if in this state he could get himself off just by talking. Provided she was there with him to listen and watch.

She earmarked the matter for later inquiry. "I think we can make that one happen," she said evenly, with more evidence of calm than she felt. "If you're still up for it."

He looked at her as if she'd commuted his sentence, and he wasn't convinced he deserved the reprieve. She gave him a small, conspiratorial smile.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She settled in, draping her arm over the back of the couch. "If you are, why don't you go get that bottle from your nightstand?"

A sharp inhalation—and then he launched to his feet. Olivia watched the curves of his ass in his boxers as he hustled down the hall. It occurred to her that maybe they ought to wait until his heat was over, until his head was entirely clear, to saunter further down this particular road. It also occurred to her that when he wasn't in heat, he might be less gung-ho about making the trip. 

She didn't think he'd say no, regardless. Too much writing on the wall said yes, and it wasn't her agenda that told her so. There were nights when she came home with no desire to make a single decision for herself, let alone for a whole other human being. She gave her share of orders, called more than her share of shots on the job. She didn't need to do it after hours. But she didn't mind working a little overtime for Rafael. Not if he liked it.

If nothing else, he'd given her the script to work with. As long as she didn't stray far from it, they'd probably be all right. Extending a leg, she pushed the coffee table back to make more room for him. She tossed a pillow on the floor for the sake of his knees.

He returned from the bedroom to stand in front of her uncertainly, bottle of lube in hand. Olivia patted the couch cushion beside her. 

"Put it here." 

He set the bottle down precisely where her hand had been. Attention to detail, of course. She smiled. "Good. You can get down now." She nodded at the pillow on the floor, between her legs. 

Rafael dropped to his knees. His eyes were beginning to glaze again. Reaching, Olivia rested a hand on his nape and gave a few gentle kneads. 

"Okay? You're still allowed to talk, you know."

He cleared his throat. "I really don't feel the need. Believe it or not."

"Okay, that's okay, too." She slid her hand to his cheek, felt its soft pliancy. She thumbed the corner of his mouth. Then she unbelted her robe—his robe—and opened its folds. She spread her legs like a man taking up more than his fair share of space. Rafael made a faint sound. His lips parted. 

"You know what to do," Olivia murmured, and he bent low.

He pressed his nose to the curls on her mound. He breathed in deeply and nuzzled, tilting his face slowly from side to side. His first kiss to her labia was incongruously chaste, closed-mouthed. Then he spread the flat of his tongue over her clit and started to lick.

Olivia let out a breath of sheer giddiness. Sweet feeling welled like a pool of honey in her lap. She slouched lower on the couch, sinking onto him. His tongue stroked her steadily, over and over, unfaltering. The wet sounds of it inflamed her ears. 

She buried her hands in his hair. Without gel it was soft and fine, still damp in patches from the shower, a pure pleasure to touch. She made hooks of her fingers, holding him in place as she massaged his scalp. Even without his script in mind, she knew what she wanted to say. 

"That's it. That's perfect. Rafa, my love, my good boy. You're so good for me." 

His whimper in answer was terse. It might've been agreement, or something shy of it—like he wanted badly to agree, but right now there was no smugness in him. 

"You like this?" she asked. "Doing this for me? You can tell me."

He lifted his smeared, swollen lips. "Yes."

"I thought so. Keep going. You're doing so good." For emphasis she pushed his head down. He breathed out, not quite a sigh, and covered her clit with his mouth again, sucking tenderly before resuming his litany of strokes. 

She let him work, praising him with petting and whispers. He smoothed a hand up her thigh, drew a finger lightly up and down her slit. He dipped it in shallowly, testing, and waited until he'd coaxed up more of her wetness before pressing and curling deeper with two. 

When the sweetness of his mouth and fingers on and in her built to a fevered strain, Olivia let go of his hair to reach for the bottle. "Give me your hand, now," she said.

Drawing his fingers out of her, he offered it. She gave the bottle a squeeze into his palm. 

"You can touch yourself. Keep your mouth on me as much as you can." She gathered a fistful of his hair again. "You don't come before I do, okay?"

He nodded. His hand trembled as he brought it to his lap. 

"Turn so I can see you do it," she added. "I want to see."

With a guttural noise he twisted sideways, fumbling his erection out of his boxers to comply. The position had to be awkward for him, but he nuzzled back to her pussy with undeterred lust. 

Olivia looked down at him: flushed face, lowered lashes, nose buried in her muff. His look of wholehearted absorption. His hand palming his slicked cock. The need in her tightened unbearably. She rocked into his mouth, for all the world as if she had her own cock to fuck it with. The thought made her insides pull taut. She could try it with her fingers, maybe. Two or three—he'd take them willingly, would let her finger-fuck his mouth as long as she liked. 

Her pulse rose to a flutter. Her breath came shallowly and quick. He was whimpering almost continuously now, small needy sounds that quivered over her clit. The jerks of his hand grew erratic.

"Don't stop," she whispered. "I'm so close."

He didn't stop, but he found his voice again, interspersing words and plaintive licks. "Liv." _Lick._ "Can I, nnh. I want to taste it. When you come. Is that okay? Please, please—"

She'd never thought herself susceptible to begging. More likely she was just susceptible to him. "Yes," she said, "yes you can," and the agony of _almost_ crested, breaking. Her fist clenched hard in his hair. The hot rush purled up her spine and down to her toes. Her head swam with it. Her mouth fell open as she curled over Rafael. He lapped at her, tasting as he'd asked to. She saw him grip the base of his cock to hold himself in check. He lifted his face to mouth her breasts, one after the other, and asked if he could come, too. 

She clutched him to her and told him yes.

With a few pulls of his hand it was over. He plastered his face to her thigh, shoulders heaving. For a little while neither of them moved, until Olivia found herself pawing insensibly through the mess of his hair. She flopped back on the couch, almost laughing at her own elation.

"You're perfect," she told him, once more for surety. He murmured against her leg. When he raised his head and tried to straighten himself on the pillow, a noise of a different sort escaped him. He hissed.

_"Fuck—"_

Startled, Olivia lurched upright. "What's wrong?"

He'd untwisted only halfway before freezing in place. His face contorted. "My back, I did something to—fuck _ow_ —"

"Oh, no. Oh, shit." A laugh sputtered out of her in spite of herself. Rafael's grimace turned aggrieved. "Okay, easy. No sudden movements." She laid her hand on his neck to gentle him; it relaxed him enough to let him untwist and gingerly stretch. 

She helped him onto the sofa. The wet spots on the rug would have to wait. "Poor man," she said. "Injured in the line of duty." Rafael winced until she gentled him again. "This one's on your commanding officer," she added. "Bad orders. You want ice? Advil? Bag of frozen peas?"

"Unwise to assume there's a vegetable in my freezer," he muttered. "Advil, maybe."

Promising to fetch it, she got him to his feet and sent him to bed. "You go lie down. I'll be there in a sec to rub your back."

She rebelted her robe and dug up painkillers from her work bag. After stopping in the kitchen for more water—and a paper towel for the living room rug—she followed him to the bedroom. 

Rafael had sprawled prone on top of the covers. His t-shirt clung to him, sodden under his arms. Setting the glass of water on the nightstand, Olivia clambered over him. She pressed the Advil into his hand.

"If you can sit up, I'll help you with your shirt," she said.

He straggled upright, raised his arms, and let her strip it from him. He gulped two pills with water before resuming his belly-down sprawl. If he was being unduly dramatic, she wasn't about to call him on it. Sitting on folded knees beside him, she spread her hands on his bare shoulders and started to knead. She massaged slowly, working her way downward in increments. She paid attention to his flinches, and lingered when he twitched and said _"Ngh."_

At the small of his back, above the waistband of his boxers, she dwelled for a long time, kneading with palms and thumbs. His arms had gone limp at his sides; his chin was mashed into the pillow. Olivia gave a final knead, then crawled to lie down alongside him.

"Better?"

He grunted. She petted his head lightly, toying with the hairs on the back of his neck. "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

"More than I should have, probably."

"Should have, says who? I liked it."

"I didn't get the impression you hated it."

"I didn't hate it a lot. But if there was any part that didn't do it for you..."

There she was, getting carried away again. Supposing a next time. Rafael didn't seem to notice the temerity. "The part where I had back spasms at the end," he said.

"That's it?"

"That's it." He turned his head toward her, giving one of his killer crooked smiles. "Was I very good?"

"You were. You are."

"I wanted to be." His voice quieted. "It's never been like this."

Olivia wasn't sure exactly what he meant—which permutation of _it_ and _this_ —but at the same time, she had a feeling she knew. Being with him, knowing the heart of him, made thinkable what had never been before. Being told what to do or doing the telling was only the shell of it, the external shape. What mattered was inside: liquid, golden. 

"Everything's different with you," she said.

His eyes on her went even softer. He tried to snuggle sideways, then winced. 

Rueful, Olivia floated the suggestion that maybe he shouldn't try to move for a while. He looked so deprived and disgruntled that she threw her arm around him, fitting herself against him since he couldn't cuddle himself. As they nestled, nose to nose, a yawn ambushed her. She fought it at first, then quit trying. 

"Might be nap time for me," she murmured. Giving all those orders took it out of her.

"You're full of good ideas," said Rafael.

*

If she slept deeply enough for dreams, Olivia remembered none of them. She woke to a hand stroking her hair, almost too faintly to detect. For a while she lay with eyes closed, unwilling to interrupt its motion, trying not to smile and give herself away. When she did open her eyes, Rafael's hand paused before resuming. The bedroom had grown dimmer. Beyond the blinds the winter sun was beginning to set.

She turned to look at him. The sight of his face, soft against the pillow, pulled at her heart the way a child would tug on a sleeve. She touched his cheek. 

"Penny for your filthy thoughts," she said.

His hand withdrew. "You caught me in a lull. Just wishing we were at your place."

"Because it smells like me?"

"Because it smells like us."

They'd spent more time at her apartment, it was true. Volumes had been written about omegas and the psychology of denning, but to Olivia's mind, it wasn't rocket science: heat made you vulnerable. Who wouldn't want to go through it in a safe space? 

It disarmed her to think he felt safer at her place than his, but there was room in it for two. There'd be room even with his books and Blu-Rays and cologne collection. She could clear out a closet for his suits. If he didn't want to end his lease, he could sublet. A little extra income, in case he decided to leave the DA's office for a less thankless job. 

If anything, it was odd verging on aberrant for a bonded omega to live apart from his partner. Rafael hadn't brought it up—was waiting for her to broach the subject, maybe. Refusing to push. Either that, or he wasn't ready himself. Wasn't sure too much togetherness wouldn't dismantle what they had, as sometimes in fits of cowardice she feared it could.

Olivia put aside the thought and the ache that chased it. Now was no time for a conversation about moving in. Not when he craved closeness with hormonal fervor. Propping herself on one elbow, she glanced around at the disheveled sheet. 

"Doesn't this one smell like us, too?"

"It's getting there," he said.

She got up to use the bathroom, then came back to bed. At some point while she'd slept Rafael had shed his boxer shorts, and hadn't replaced them. The uncovered view was hard to ignore. Olivia smoothed her hand parallel to his spine. 

"How's the back?"

"Doesn't hurt now."

"Glad I didn't cause permanent damage. How's the front?"

His mouth curled into a lackadaisical grin. "Sweet of you to ask," he said, but he showed no inclination to roll over. Unfazed, Olivia eased herself onto him. His skin smelled freshly washed, as if he'd showered again. It would account for the missing boxers, anyway. She laid a kiss on the back of his neck, then followed with a second, then a third. She made a descending trail of them, scooting downward as she went. Above his tailbone she blew a raspberry that made Rafael snicker aloud.

When she cupped his bare ass in her hands, he quit laughing. She took a minute to enjoy the heft of it, the lovely meatiness, then rubbed a finger oh-so-lightly along the top of the cleft.

"Is the jury still out on this?" she asked. "You never said."

"Didn't I?"

"Nope." She stopped teasing with her finger. "I was paying attention."

He grew quiet, but facing away from her must've made it easier to talk about, even without a drink or six. "When I'm in heat, I like it. Outside of heat, sometimes, by myself. Otherwise—"

"Otherwise, not so much?"

"I don't know. I think too much."

"Too much about...expectations?"

"Something like that."

Difficulty lowering defenses around alphas, intoned a clinical voice in Olivia's head. Even in the context of intimate relationships. Or especially there. But she wasn't here to profile him, and she wasn't his therapist. She wasn't an alpha, strictly speaking. She sure as hell wasn't a man.

"Not to brag," she said, "but I'm pretty good at getting you to relax. And at making your brain shut down."

"You are without peer," he corrected, and she could hear the humor in it. She gave his ass an encouraging squeeze.

"How about a little salad toss?"

"Salad? Do people still say that?"

"I dunno, but you're pretty cute back here. Cute enough to eat."

"Why is that even an idiom? Kittens are cute. They're not edible."

If he was coherent enough to use the word _idiom,_ she had her work cut out for her. "Hand me a pillow, will you? If that's a yes."

Apparently it was. He lifted his hips without being told so she could tuck the pillow under them. Olivia settled on her stomach behind him, between his outspread legs. For a minute she staked out the territory, marshaling her nerve. She'd meant it, about the cute, and this was no time for timidity. Funny as it felt to be a rookie at her age, it was never too late to flesh out a skill set. She drew a finger down the seam where his cheeks met, not pressing, and heard him breathe in sharply through his nose. 

Leaning in, she nuzzled along the line her finger had traced. She kissed first one side, then the other. Using both hands, she spread him gently and breathed hot breath over the uncovered skin. He smelled clean here, too, with just the barest hint of musk and rising sweat. Her breath stirred the dark little hairs around his hole.

Rafael made a high-pitched sound, and buried his face in his pillow.

When she started to lick he hissed with enough force to give her pause. She lifted her mouth. "Okay?"

His voice quavered. "We who are about to die salute you."

From school principal to Caesar in one day. Olivia wondered if she should worry about the speed of her promotion. "You're not gonna die."

"I might if you keep going. Murder one."

"You can't charge me from the afterlife," she said, and picked up right where she'd left off.

Soon he was moaning, pushing back into her mouth, grinding into the pillow under him. She had to grab him by the hip with one hand to settle him down. 

"Hey, you." She patted his ass-cheek with her thumb. "Take it easy."

With his face mashed in the pillow at the head of the bed, she could barely make out his mumbling. "Sorry. Sorry. Fuck it's good. I'll get you back. If you want. Just my mouth, no—nothing else."

Persuasive as always. Olivia could see her way to letting him do that much. It seemed a shame to limit his oral arguments to only one side. "Thought about it, have you?"

"Every time you bend over."

She smacked his right cheek with the flat of her hand, not at all hard, and Rafael Barba honest-to-God giggled. 

"Oh, you like that?" 

"When I've been _bad."_

He sounded giddy, as giddy as she'd felt when his mouth was on her clit. It seemed unlikely that being butt-slapped was as fun as all that—she'd never understood the appeal of spanking, much less the appeal of getting spanked—but maybe he was starting to get loopy. Heat-drunk. She'd seen it in other omegas when she was on the job.

"You're never bad," she said. It seemed important to specify. She rubbed the slapped cheek and its less florid twin. "Just mouthy."

She underscored this by getting back to being mouthy with him. On him. In him, if only slightly, with the tip of her tongue. For a while it seemed to lull him, which soothed her in turn. She settled into a cadence of gentle licks. It was when she brought her fingers to bear, teasing over his taint, that his breath began to hitch. Before long he was tormenting the pillow again. 

When she pulled back for a breather, Rafael abruptly lurched onto all fours. His arms went taut. His head hung down between them. Then he lowered his forearms back to the bed, leaving his ass in the air. His back arched into classic lordosis. Fuck-me-now pose, people called it, and other names Olivia liked even less. 

Despite all they'd done and were doing, it jarred her to see him assume the position. A lump rose in her throat. Don't, she wanted to say: you don't have to, not like that. Not with me. Use your words if you want. You don't have to beg that way. But the pose was reflexive, she knew. It was part of the whole package, a package she dearly loved. She'd shamed him once already today. She wouldn't make the same mistake again. 

More to the point was the risk that he'd fubar his back for real this time. Leaning over him, Olivia splayed her hands and stroked his sides.

"Hey, hey, I don't want you to hurt your back again. Can you come up?" With a quiet huff he returned to all fours. "That's it."

"Liv," he whispered. "Liv, please."

"What do you need? It's okay, talk to me."

"Your fingers? I want. I want you in me." 

Her mind went as white as the bedsheet. She fumbled her caresses on his hips. "Okay, okay, we can do that. You'll talk me through?"

Head hanging, he nodded vigorously. She had to let go of him to get the lube. His faint sound of dismay when she stopped touching him smote her conscience. To make up for it she crawled back onto the bed, undid the belt of her robe, and covered him with her body, pressing her bare chest to his back. 

For a minute she just held him like that, nuzzling. It seemed to serve; his breathing grew less tattered at the edges, and his body relaxed. She needed him relaxed to do what he wanted her to do. Sitting back on her haunches behind him, she slathered her index finger with lube. If she erred on the side of excess, so be it. She'd seen omegas wind up in the hospital, torn and bleeding, all because they and their partners honestly believed the myth of a self-lubricating ass. 

Spreading him open, she touched the pad of her slick finger softly to his hole. Just petting, at first, with little lapping strokes, the same as she'd done with her tongue. Rafael shivered. She felt like shivering, too.

"I'll start with one, okay?"

"Two, I can take two—"

"Don't get greedy." She started to press in, then added another squeeze of lube for good measure. When she dawdled too long, Rafael jerked his head. 

"Just do it, Liv, Christ, you're not defusing a bomb. Stick it in." 

So she did. To the first knuckle, and then the second. It happened with astonishing ease. Inside he was hot, so hot around her—it felt like fingering herself, only tighter where the ring of muscle clenched—and not at all like, because it wasn't her own body. She waited for the clench to subside. 

"Okay?" 

"Mm-hm. Go on."

She pressed deeper and crooked her finger. She knew she'd hit the spot when Rafael made a stifled noise, neither gulp nor groan. 

"Right there?"

"Good work, Detective." His voice was hoarse.

Olivia spared him a reminder of her current rank. She circled with the tip of her finger, tentative at first, asking _like that?_ and _more?_ Yes, he rasped, and _yes,_ so she pressed, pressed, pressed in gentle pulsing motions. She tried to be as attentive, as tireless as he was when his head was in her lap. 

When he asked again for another finger, she gave it to him. Two made for more of a stretch, but once they were in, Rafael rocked himself on them wantonly. Sweat gleamed on his back and shoulders in a sweltering sheen. 

A flush to match his suffused Olivia, beginning to dizzy her. Whenever she rode him or sucked him, that felt like her doing. This felt like her doing—doing to him—to the nth degree. Much more of it and she'd be in danger of growing a big brass ego of her own. She swallowed the urge to tell him how good he was, unsure whether he could bear it now. 

"Could you come like this?" she asked instead. "Just from this?"

He bowed his head and shook it, not in denial. "I don't know, I don't know, maybe?" He cast a look over his shoulder with half-lidded eyes. "Maybe for you."

It shot a bolt of heat through her, right to her core, and he wasn't even touching her. She wasn't even touching herself. A bolt of inspiration followed: she rose up on her knees and wedged the heel of her hand against her groin. By shifting her hips she could push her fingers into him, grinding on the ball of her thumb as she did. Makeshift as it was, the method pleased her. She bent over him, reaching around him with her other hand.

"Some other time," she said. "Don't want to get ahead of myself." She grasped his cock and stroked him. Doing it southpaw felt clumsy, but he didn't seem to care; he made a guttural sound and rocked front to back between her hands. "But next time?" Her voice dropped to a purr. "Next time I'll have a strap-on. You can help me pick it out. You can help me put it on, and then I'm gonna fuck you, Rafael, until you can't see straight."

"Oh God—" 

His back arched. His cock throbbed in her grip. She pushed her hips and hand in tight repeated motions, barely moving in and out, pressing the sweet spot in him over and over again. 

Almost without meaning to, she said, "I wish you could fuck me while I do this."

It was an afterthought, mindlessly added. It pitched Rafael over the edge. His cock pulsed, spilling what it could, what little was left in him. His groan stuttered and stopped in his throat. As she let go, he sagged, then folded, pulling off her buried fingers. He collapsed into a naked heap, gasping, careless of the spatters on the bed.

Olivia fitted herself behind him. He craned his neck to blink at her, looking wrecked. 

"D'you...d'you wan...?" 

Getting his tongue to work seemed to pose a problem for him. A glimmer of drool clung to his chin. Olivia allowed herself a private moment of self-congratulation. 

"Later," she soothed him. "Get me later. It's okay."

For once he didn't demur. She held her right hand away from him, careful to touch nothing with her fingers. When she started to scoot off the bed, he grabbed the sleeve of her robe. 

"Don't go?" 

"I'm just gonna wash up. Be right back." She kissed the worry on his damp brow. "Right back." 

He frowned, but reluctantly unhanded her. In the bathroom she was thorough and quick. She came back to find he'd made heroic efforts not to pass out. 

She spooned up behind him. "Hey, sweet man. Go to sleep if you want."

But he turned his head to kiss and be kissed. Every time she thought he'd had enough, he tilted his chin for another. The other places her tongue had lately been seemed to faze him not at all.

"You meant it?" he asked at last, curled drowsily in her arms. "You'd do that for me?"

"Not only for you. I wasn't fibbing."

He blinked in admission; she didn't lie to him. "Sometimes the throes of passion generate...alternative facts."

The irony didn't escape Olivia: more often it was heat-stricken omegas whose words were subject to doubt. Dismissed as spoken from an alternate reality. She wondered who'd made him promises and failed to keep them. She wondered if she could deck the perpetrator in the face. 

"Not from me." She stroked his hair. "You're sounding way too lucid now."

He pillowed his head on her shoulder. "It comes and goes."

"I meant it," she said. "If you want it. In heat or out of it." Her smile went sideways enough to pass as one of his. "We'll go shopping. You can pick whatever color you want."

*

By dinnertime Rafael's complexion had returned to normal. He ate two helpings of lasagna from Graziano's (which was delicious), a chocolate-dipped cannoli (which was lewd, at least the way he went about it), and downed a glass of Olivia's red.

"I'm on the tail end," he said, by way of excuse for the wine. "It never lasts more than a day."

And he seemed to be right. After dinner they lounged on the couch to watch _Roman Holiday_ —a film about an actual omega princess—and make out with unhurried indolence. When Olivia paused the movie to sidle onto him, to feel him in her one more time, it was more for her sake than his.

Later, as they lay in bed, she squinted at her phone.

"This says if you've had false heat once, you're more likely to have it again," she said, reading. A half-dozen work emails yammered for her attention, but she'd answered the most pressing. The rest could wait until morning. 

Rafael was lazing beside her, legs crossed at the ankles, enjoying the luxury of not sweating through his shorts. "My doctor said the same. Good to know he's keeping up with Medscape dot com."

Olivia took off her reading glasses and set them aside, ditching her phone along with them. "I know you didn't ask for this, but what would you say to doing it on purpose? Sometime when you're ready? With a plan."

"You're telling me once wasn't enough?"

"We could go somewhere nice. One of those high-end heat retreats. Bet you've got a lead on some in the Caribbean."

His smirk was more or less desultory, but she was happy to see it back. "One or two. If we planned it, if I could choose when..."

"You won't have them forever, right? Gotta get it while the getting's good."

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may?"

If that was Shakespeare, Olivia couldn't have named the sonnet to save her life. "Exactly." She moved to crawl under the covers, then paused. "You never did show me your toybox."

Rafael's eyes glinted. He rolled sideways and opened the cabinet in the nightstand to rummage within. "For future reference," he clarified. "I'm done in for the night."

The box was a literal box, with a lid and a latch. It held a number of smaller boxes, primly arranged, which held a rainbow array of butt plugs. There were a couple of more curvaceous massagers, at least one of which had a remote control. The monster dildo that some ignoble part of Olivia had been imagining was conspicuously absent.

The plugs varied in size, but were mostly unalarming, except in color. Olivia picked up a modest specimen in fuchsia, holding it by the flared base.

"Nice collection," she said. "Ever wear one of these out of the house?"

"I plead the Fifth," said Rafael.

"Ever wear one in court?"

He looked scandalized, and reached to snatch the plug from her hands. "I may have profaned the halls of Justice, but not like _that."_

As if he hadn't once let a perp on the witness stand publicly choke him. For a guy who owned multicolored butt plugs—who'd just blown his wad six times in one day—he really could be a prude in some respects. But she liked him like that. It made them a matched set. He wasn't taking cases to court these days, anyway, so that was no obstacle. Olivia thought about telling him when to put the plug in, when to take it out. She thought about the curved massager, about keeping it in him while he was in her, about holding the remote in her hand. Holding control.

It was the kind of thing she would've rolled her eyes at if she'd heard about it on a case. Some middle-aged alpha wannabe's tawdry fantasy. Maybe the heat pheromones had gone to her head, after all. Or maybe this sort of thing looked different from the inside. Plenty of desires did. Nothing was tawdry between her and Rafael, she was sure of that. Not even hot pink silicone.

Rafael returned the box to the nightstand. "I showed you mine," he declared, crawling back into bed. "Quid pro quo next time we're at your place."

"Don't get too excited. I own all of two vibrators, one of which no longer holds a charge."

"Wore that puppy out, did you? Poor thing. I sympathize."

Olivia thumped him on the backside, so he was laughing as he switched off the light.

**Author's Note:**

> To my mind this is not especially dubious consent, so I haven't tagged for that, but YMMV.
> 
> Comments are treasured! You can also find me at unicornmagic.tumblr.com


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